Chapter 1 #2
My poor impression of him was renewed by his complete overreaction after I knocked over his science fair robot in the second half of senior year.
It was a complete accident, but he flipped out on me, suddenly not at all at a loss for words.
He’s still talking about it, as if I were the only stumbling block between him and a brilliant science career.
“Nora?” he prompts from the other side of the door.
I glance at the window over the toilet, but unfortunately it’s not human-sized, and as the maid of honor for this wedding, I can hardly avoid the best man forever. Sighing, I open the door, and am a little caught off-guard by the sight of him.
He wasn’t at the rehearsal party last night, something about an important meeting with people in a disagreeable time zone, yada yada yada.
It’s actually been a month and a half since we last crossed paths at an Easter lunch, and he looks different.
He’s been palling around with my friend Briar’s boyfriend, and they’ve been working out a lot.
It shows in the snug fit of his suit jacket.
His curly, light-brown hair is a bit overgrown, as usual, and his wire-frame glasses look like they’ve seen some shit.
But his gray eyes are attention-getters, the same as always.
“What’s up, Cormac?” I ask.
He adjusts his glasses and looks away from me.
“Were you looking for me, or did you have a sudden, urgent need for a private restroom?”
I shouldn’t provoke him, but he’s always as rude to me as I am to him.
It goes without saying that neither of us are pleased we’ll be stitched together permanently through our parents’ impending marriage.
Most people have the pleasure of leaving their high school acquaintances permanently behind as soon as they leave those hallowed doors.
He gestures to my office door, which leads to the back hallway of The Ginger Station. “There are bathrooms out there.”
“Indeed. This one is attached to my office.”
“Which is why I figured you might be in here. I checked the other office first, but your mom and a few other women are in there, and they have really big hair. Anyway, I’m getting off track.
I was hoping we could…” He pauses, rocking on his heels.
“Air out our differences? You know, we’re going to have to spend plenty of time together. ”
I rub my forehead, feeling my hangover reassert itself. “Is this really the time for us to have this discussion? Our parents are getting married in an hour.”
“Forty-five minutes,” he says, unironically.
“Exactly.” My hand drops from my forehead. “Can’t we argue later?”
“I’d prefer it if we don’t argue at all. I might think my dad’s making a mistake, but—”
Fury blasts through me, and I poke a finger into his chest. “Do you seriously think your dad is too good for my mom?” I hiss. “Choose your next words very carefully.”
He frowns and pushes my finger away. “No, of course not. Your mom’s not the problem. I like your mom well enough. I just don’t see any reason for them to make their relationship legally binding.”
“That makes a surprising amount of sense,” I concede.
“But it’s a little too late for either of us to try to talk them out of it.
” Since this conversation shows no signs of ending anytime soon, I walk over and shut the office door before striding back to him.
He has edged away from the bathroom and is standing behind the visitor chairs pushed up to my desk.
He nods. “Yeah, I tried to have a conversation with him about it last night, and he didn’t take it well.”
“What the fuck? You tried to talk him into leaving her at the altar?”
Cormac laughs. He actually laughs!
I take a step toward the door, done with his nonsense, but he captures my forearm, his grip light but firm. “Nora, I’m sorry. I just…” More laughter. “Sometimes I laugh at inappropriate times.”
No shit, but I stop in my tracks.
Like it or not, the man has a point. We will have to deal with each other for the next who-knows-how-long. I have enough difficult relationships to navigate in my life—ours doesn’t need to continue being one of them.
“I wasn’t telling Dad he should leave her,” he says earnestly. “I tried to convince him they don’t need to file paperwork for it to feel real. My mother worked him over in the divorce. He had to give her half of everything, even his dog.”
“How’d he give her half a dog?”
“They had a custody schedule.” His lips curl upward, nearly a smile but not quite. I’d give it a C-plus if I were a teacher like my mom is. “Color-coded. Shared holidays.”
“Holy shit. Did they have one for you too, or only the dog?”
His smile stretches wider. “It was generally agreed upon that while Daisy required a custody agreement, their twenty-one-year-old son could decide for himself. But it would have made things easier if they’d gone for it.
Then I wouldn’t have to deal with the back-and-forth texts every Thanksgiving and Christmas. ”
“Sounds like a passive-aggressive nightmare. I’m glad it’s not like that with my parents.”
Because my father is a cheating hypocrite. As far as I’m concerned, he can fuck right off and spend the holidays by himself or with whatever age-inappropriate woman he’s “dating.” Odds are, she’ll be one of his former students at UNC Asheville.
Sure, I used to understand my mother’s obsession with my father, when I was a teeny-tiny kid and he was launching a charm offensive. But I realized he was full of shit a long time before his chronic infidelity finally became impossible for my mother to explain away.
Cormac makes a humming sound deep in his throat. “The great thing about passive aggression is that it can largely be ignored, especially if you’re not good at identifying it in the first place.”
I actually laugh, which comes as a surprise to both of us. Then we seem to simultaneously realize that he is still, for some ungodly reason, touching my arm. He drops his hand instantly, as if I’m the hot potato who lost him the game.
I purse my lips, remembering how horrified he had looked when that spinning bottle stopped on me.
“Sooo, should we arrange a custody schedule for our parents?” I ask.
He laughs again, and I’m charitable enough to acknowledge that it’s a pleasant laugh. Deep and rich, the way laughter should be. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. If I have to watch them make out, I’d prefer not to do it alone.”
He has a point about this too. Our parents, both of whom are card-carrying members of AARP, act like they’re teenagers who just discovered mouths can do something other than talk and eat.
It would be kind of sweet if it weren’t entirely too much.
“What about Daisy the dog? Can’t she keep you company? ”
“Only her memory, and I can’t bring my dog to their house.”
“You have a different dog?”
“Yeah. She’s on two different anxiety medications.”
“Like father, like daughter.”
He lifts his chin, studying me. “Oh, you’re one of those people who acts like a dog is a child.”
I laugh at the open disdain in his voice. “I don’t even have a dog.”
The look on his face suggests that’s for the best—for the dog.
“I’d be a great pet owner,” I lie.
I spend so little time in my apartment that it took me a week to realize there was a leak under the kitchen sink, and another week to get it fixed.
“Okay.” He seems unconvinced.
I frown at him, suddenly desperate to prove I’d be an exceptional pet owner. The best in the world, a real maestro of pets that other people would want to consult and write books about.
Cormac has done this to me since high school.
He’s always the smartest person in the room, and when I’m around him, I instantly feel the need to prove myself. Especially since he seems so unimpressed by everything. That, in turn, pisses me off. It’s what they call a vicious cycle.
“Look…I really want us to get along,” he says. “I’m willing to let the thing with my robot go.”
I narrow my gaze at him. “I’ve told you at least twenty times the science fair thing was an accident.”
“Do you think that means you aren’t at fault?” He adjusts his glasses again. “If you mowed someone down on the street because you were looking at your phone instead of paying attention, you don’t think you should face consequences for that?”
“I apologized,” I say tightly. “Do you want me to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness?”
His lips part, and a strange look fills his eyes. Almost as if—
No. He’s made it very clear he finds me unappealing, and the sentiment is mutual. In high school, he was a nerd in an ivory tower who couldn’t be bothered to be civil, and I’ve seen nothing to suggest he’s changed.
“Are you really going to get down on your—”
A strangled sound escapes him as I lower onto my knees on the wood flooring. It was the look in his eyes that did it—almost like he was daring me. Or maybe he just doubted someone like me would ever say sorry. So of course I have to apologize in the most dramatic way possible.
I gaze up at him, soaking in his surprise.
“Cormac Peebles,” I say, my voice filled with honey.
“Will you please forgive me for making out with Justin Greene behind your science fair display? He was a tool, but he was very dreamy, and I couldn’t help myself.
It was completely unplanned, and the classroom seemed like a great place to hide, but I regret that your robot paid the price. ”
He sighs, shaking his head, but his eyes are hooked on me. I’ve officially captured his attention. He reaches down and offers me a hand. “Get up, Nora.”
I take it, grinning like an idiot, but my kitten heel twists to the side as he’s giving me a boost. I tumble into him, and for half a second I’m pressed against his chest. Shock ripples through me, chased by the realization that he’s surprisingly firm.
The door creaks open, revealing Pansy in the doorway in a pink taffeta princess dress. She gasps so theatrically I can only conclude she’s practiced it multiple times.
“What would Marco say?” she asks in an exhale.